Suntarankal
THE CRUCIBLE OF BRASS AND IRON DEMON OF THE THIRD CIRCLE, FIFTEENTH SOUL OF MALFEAS Suntarankal is among the largest and most famed marital arts academies in Malfeas. This soul of Malfeas is one of the greatest martial artists in existence, and now trapped with his master, he attempts to pass on a fraction of the fighting lore he has absorbed over the millennia. Those seeking to learn at Suntarankal must endure the demon’s callous nature and ruthless lessons, but the worthy can master fighting arts thought lost long ago. The Crucible of Brass and Iron is a vast complex covering miles of the Demon City. It sits in a deep basin near the forest of Hrotsvitha. Brass and iron bolted to Malfeas itself form barricades that follow the slope of the basin to form a great bowl-like outer wall. Living quarters, dojos, shrines and open courtyards paved with bone spiral out to the sloped walls, all built around a great pagoda in the center of the school. The pagoda has seven levels, and within each level are seven rooms, forming the fabled Forty-Nine Chambers. It is here that Suntarankal tests the faithful and crushes the unworthy. Acceptance into the academy is actually quite easy. Suntarankal opens his gates to all who wish to learn the fighting arts. Even slaves may come to train, assuming they can elude their masters. Few applicants are turned away, and smiling demon statues stand at the gates of the academy with arms open in greeting. Once accepted, however, the training is brutal. Many students are injured, crippled or destroyed every year. The Crucible’s demons and instructors devise hellish regimens of physical training. Full-contact sparring without any protection or medical treatment for the injured is a common method of instruction. Training typically lasts seven years, though particularly skilled fighters can sometimes finish sooner. Unsurprisingly, many students find they cannot hack the training. Unfortunately, once a student signs the rolls of the Crucible of Brass and Iron, she cannot leave without the permission of the school. The Crucible of Brass and Iron rarely gives such permission, preferring to keep poor students around to serve as fodder to train the more promising ones and as lessons about the cost of failure. When he does occasionally allow a student to leave his walls, it is always as part of some greater scheme or plan. There is no set curriculum at the school, and students study form after form, art after art until Suntarankal and his instructors declare one’s studies complete. The exact completion criteria are unknown, though no student ever leaves the school without having mastered at least one of the demon’s infernal arts. Once a student of Suntarankal completes his training, he is taken to the 49 Chambers for his final test. Here, the Crucible of Brass and Iron tests the student, leading him on a journey that takes him through each chamber in whatever order the demon deems appropriate. Suntarankal does not actively try to slay his students—virtually none would survive if he did—because the demon wants powerful fighters to spread the glory of his martial arts. Yet walls of living razors, towering demon gladiators, scything blades of red-hot iron and other such obstacles still kill or cripple many. Those who survive are branded with the sign of Suntarankal to show that they have passed his trials and learned his arts. The brand, depicting an eye surrounded by 49 spines, quickly fades but becomes noticeable again whenever the student uses the martial arts he learned at the school. When Suntarankal is summoned to Creation, it is almost always to reveal some lost secret of the martial arts or fight some great foe in a duel. While serving in this manner, the Crucible of Brass and Iron often displays wondrous powers and hints strongly that the summoner could learn much more in Malfeas. Those who agree are taken back to Malfeas and put through an exceptionally brutal training regimen that will teach the promised skills but is also more likely to kill or break the student. When he takes a mortal guise to personally instruct or to fight, Suntarankal prefers the classic form of the old wizened master. In this form, his brass-colored eyes shine with malevolent glee, and his smile seems both pleasant and sadistic. In this form or any other, the demon is an unparalleled martial artist. He can defeat whole schools of Exalted fighters singlehandedly and often employs no magic or weapons to accomplish this feat. If confronting a particularly powerful foe, he sometimes calls his staff of black ironwood to his hand and uses it to rain bone-shattering blows down upon his opponent.